Plot
In the year 2058, with Earth soon to be uninhabitable from the irreversible effects of pollution, the majority of nations (the United Global Space Force) prepare for the peaceful colonization of space. Meanwhile, a minority of terrorist forces (the Global Sedition) seek to shape colonization to their own agenda. Professor John Robinson (William Hurt), lead scientist of the Jupiter Mission, plans to lead his wife Maureen (Mimi Rogers), daughters Judy (Heather Graham) and Penny (Lacey Chabert), and son Will (Jack Johnson) on a 10-year mission in suspended animation to the nearby habitable planet Alpha Prime, where they will build a companion "hypergate" to the one in construction in Earth orbit (hypergates providing stable points of departure and arrival when using the faster-than-light hyperdrive). The project is accelerated after Global Sedition terrorist forces attack the Earth hypergate, thwarted in part by pilot Major Don West (Matt LeBlanc), and murder the Jupiter Mission's candidate pilot, with Don replacing him.
Dr. Zachary Smith (Gary Oldman), a mole employed by the Global Sedition, reprograms the mission's robot to destroy the ship and crew, but is betrayed by his employers and left as an unwilling stowaway when the Jupiter II blasts off. Several minutes into the flight, the robot attacks the cockpit. The Robinsons stop the robot, but not before it causes the ship to veer off course into the gravitational pull of the Sun, with the only option for the underpowered ship to use the hyperdrive and end up in a random, uncharted part of the galaxy. Eventually, the ship comes across a "hole in space" and, after entering, encounters an unknown planet and two abandoned space ships in orbit; the Proteus, an Earth ship from the future, and a ship that is not of human origin. An investigation of the Proteus reveals navigational data that they can use to get to Alpha Prime and the discovery of an alien primate that they adopt as a pet, but they also discover the aging ship is infested with carnivorous spider-like lifeforms, one of which scratches Dr. Smith. To escape the spiders' attack, Don reactivates and overloads the Proteus' engine, with the shockwave from the resulting explosion damaging the Jupiter II and throwing it down to the planet below.
On the mysterious planet, Professor Robinson and Major West go out in search of radioactive material to replace the burnt-out half of the ship's core through a strange, growing bubble of unknown origin. They eventually learn that the "holes" and "bubbles" are distortions of time and space, caused by future versions of Will (Jared Harris) and Dr. Smith constructing a time machine in order to return to an earlier time on Earth and prevent the Robinsons from getting lost. They are all betrayed, however, by the future Smith, who has become a hybrid of the alien spiders on the Proteus (which scratched him) and plans to unleash his spider race on an unsuspecting Earth. Robinson battles Spider Smith while Major West returns to the past Jupiter II (without the power source) to evacuate the other Robinsons. John stops Spider Smith by wounding and then opening the eggsac on his rear end, which frees the baby spiders, who then start to eat Spider Smith. John then pushes Spider Smith into the uncompleted time portal, where he is torn apart by the gravitational field.
Don and the other Robinsons attempt to escape in the past Jupiter II, as the time machine's warping tears apart the planet, but are unable to reach escape velocity and the ship is destroyed by flying debris. Future Will, previously unconvinced of his father's love, finally recognizes his father's deep love for his family and allows him to take his time portal to back before the Jupiter II's attempted escape. Knowing that the escape velocity plan will doom them, John commands West to pilot the ship through the planet's core as it breaks up, using the planet's gravity to propel the ship out the other side and back into space. They escape, but the collapsed planet forms a small black hole that begins to suck the Jupiter II back in. To escape, the Robinsons once again activate the hyperdrive, using the Alpha Prime navigational data from the Proteus to blast off again into potentially unknown space.
Read more about this topic: Lost In Space (film)
Famous quotes containing the word plot:
““The plot thickens,” he said, as I entered.”
—Sir Arthur Conan Doyle (1859–1930)
“If you need a certain vitality you can only supply it yourself, or there comes a point, anyway, when no one’s actions but your own seem dramatically convincing and justifiable in the plot that the number of your days concocts.”
—John Ashbery (b. 1927)
“James’s great gift, of course, was his ability to tell a plot in shimmering detail with such delicacy of treatment and such fine aloofness—that is, reluctance to engage in any direct grappling with what, in the play or story, had actually “taken place”Mthat his listeners often did not, in the end, know what had, to put it in another way, “gone on.””
—James Thurber (1894–1961)